


daughter

by astratic



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Book 4: The Battle of the Labyrinth, Calypso Is There but like only barely, Gen, Trans Female Character, also Hephaestus, but this is mostly percy introspecting, the heart of a volcano is a great place for learning things about yourself, this is a headcanon i have thought about for a long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 00:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astratic/pseuds/astratic
Summary: Something happened in that volcano; the earth is a mother, a womb. The forge is a place of creation, and of change. The forces at work among the telkhines had been malevolent, yes, but they were also primal. Elemental. I am water, she thinks, moveable as the tide, bane of fire and breaker of earth. I am formed again in the rubble.





	daughter

**Author's Note:**

> All Your Faves Are Trans!
> 
> i wrote this based on a thought i had when i was rereading these books like a year or so ago. mount st helens always felt like it should have been more of a personal turning point for percy--theres a lot of symbolic potential in a kid blowing up a volcano from the inside right after their first kiss.

It is a daughter of the sea that lets loose a tidal wave in the heart of a volcano. She finds herself there just as she finds that power, and she unleashes it. Truer to her nature than ever before.

She wakes to the attention of a beautiful girl who loves her and calls her "man," and she thinks that this is a new form of cruelty the gods have cooked up. She felt the earthquake rumbling out of her very soul, rending the stone around her. She is no man.

The god of fire, the blacksmith, seems to sense the revelation she had in the depths of his forge, and she thinks this is only appropriate. Mortals, he says, you are so concerned with what you look like. I should send you to my wife.

He hunkers down low, his form terrible and misshapen, and whispers. His breath smells like the smoke of a coal fire. You can be anything you like, he says, you can be yourself a work of art. If my wife has taught me one thing, it is that.

She looks in the mirror at the form she'd always felt uncomfortable with, but hadn't been able to put her finger on why. It is burnt at the edges, and sickly. She thinks this may be the perfect time to rebuild herself. Just as she hits the bottom.

She looks at Calypso in her lovely prison and thinks of all the times gods and immortals took her for something she wasn't and added their own punishment to the pain of that mistaken existence. Immortals are cruel, and no less ignorant. She feels a pang of sympathy for her savior. She is much the same.

Something happened in that volcano; the earth is a mother, a womb. The forge is a place of creation, and of change. The forces at work among the telkhines had been malevolent, yes, but they were also primal. Elemental. I am water, she thinks, moveable as the tide, bane of fire and breaker of earth. I am formed again in the rubble.

I have to leave.

\---

The leaving is hard. She knows, she knows, that away from this quiet, away from the kind understanding of Calypso, she will have to deal with the world after the volcano. A world that looks at her and sees someone she is not and has never been.

It has always been like this, she thinks, the only difference is that now I know why.

Knowing is almost like a burning stone in the back of her mind, a bit of lava that escaped with her when she ripped the volcano apart. She is afraid to touch it, afraid to think about it, lest it start a fire and consume her.

Your father's nature protects you, the sea demon's voice says in her mind, it makes you hard to burn.

The water turns salty around her, and she thinks about her father. What will he say, when he learns? The son of Poseidon died in that explosion, she thinks. I'm only wearing his face.

She quickly pushes that thought away; it's morbid, and not true. She's the same as she always was, just less confused. Plus, it makes her think of too many horror movies. She's had enough horror lately.

She feels more lost than ever, though, as she washes up on the shores of home. How can I face them?

\---

Walking in on her own funeral feels oddly appropriate. She knows she should say something, break the spell of mourning, but she's frozen.

He was the bravest friend I ever had.

Her trance is broken by a scream, and suddenly she is back from the dead


End file.
